A Movie A Day: GHOST STORY (1981) I will show you things you’ve never seen and I will see the life run out of you.

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Day: Halloween 2010 edition!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf or streamed via Netflix Instant and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day.]

GHOST STORY has been on my radar for a while now. I remember seeing the poster art as a kid walking the horror aisle of the local video store and later I remember reading about Dick Smith’s make-up work (especially his cut creation… more on that later). I liked the idea of this great Old Hollywood cast in a ghost story, but a couple of things kept me from diving in.
Mostly it was that I’d heard it was kind of a boring flick.
This column gives me the perfect excuse to visit the film after all these years. What better time to bring it out and finally give it a spin?

I see the criticisms. GHOST STORY isn’t out to give you an entertaining thrill ride, but exists mostly to let you soak up the atmosphere as we get to know a few central characters. In some scenes that really ups the tension and in others it just makes the pacing feel sluggish.
I like Peter Straub’s collaborations with Stephen King (The Talisman is a fantastic read and would make an amazing adult fantasy mini-series as long as Ehren Kruger isn’t writing it), but must admit to being fairly ignorant of his solo work, so I can’t comment on how faithful this is to his book, but one thought kept occurring to me over and over while watching: This is the kind of movie that could benefit from a remake.
The basic structure is solid. A group of old men share a secret that is literally coming back to haunt them and their grown children. These old men have spent decades reveling in the macabre, gathering together in cigar smoke-filled dens, dressed to the nines, to tell ghost stories as a way of dealing with a real-life horror experienced in their youths.

With a solid structure and a possible vehicle for some great older actors mixed with a more competent director I think this could be an incredibly effective movie.
What we have now is a near-miss. It’s great to see Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Patricia Neal, John Houseman, Melvyn Douglas and Fred Astaire working together and gracing the silver screen in their golden years. Especially Astaire. That is one dude you don’t want to see in a horror movie. With the baggage he brings just by being Fred Astaire you immediately don’t want to see him in jeopardy.
But the whole doesn’t ever click. It’s not a bad movie, it’s not a great movie… it’s one of those kinda good movies, but with the talent involved it should have been a classic.
I can pinpoint one particular failure of the film: the rejection of Dick Smith’s original design for the vengeful spirit.
When the ghost, Eva, shows up wanting to scare the living to death we see a rather bad composite effect of a decomposing woman that feels like an afterthought. Here’s what she looks like:

It’s not a particularly great piece of work and the execution of the effect doesn’t help it at all.
Now, here’s Dick Smith’s original design:

BOOM. You fucked up, movie people.
What makes Eva interesting as a spirit is that while she’s right to be pissed and want revenge, there’s a malicious nature to her persona that would totally conjure a visual like the above to represent her inner hatred.
KNB later worked with Dick Smith to reincorporate this design into THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL remake. It’s fine in that movie, but if it had been the threat as intended in GHOST STORY that could have been the push that would have taken that film from kinda good to great, I think.
Because right now it’s all build up and character work with a minimal pay off. Without the great casting job on both the older cast and finding young Alice Krige to play Eva in the flashbacks (and in ghostly form later on) this would be a wholly unremarkable film.
Final Thoughts: GHOST STORY is a mixed bag. There are horrible pacing issues, bad choices apparent in almost every scene, but still the overall story and casting helps elevate the movie to a slight recommend. Also, Alice Krige has never been more innocently beautiful in one scene and sinisterly creepy in the next. And young and nekkid for you more base constant readers.
Currently in print on DVD: YESOn Netflix Instant: NO

Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Sunday, October 3rd: TWO ON A GUILLOTINE (1965)

Monday, October 4th: TENTACLES (1977)

Tuesday, October 5th: BAD RONALD (1974)

Wednesday, October 6th: THE ENTITY (1983)

Thursday, October 7th: DOCTOR X (1932)

Friday, October 8th: THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)

Saturday, October 9th: THE TENANT (1976)

I’ll be back tomorrow for my thoughts on TWO ON A GUILLOTINE, a remastered shocker from the Warner Archive starring Connie Stevens, Dean Jones and the great Cesar Romero! See ya’ then!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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Haven't seen it since the good old early 80's cable years. Thought it was a creepy little "ghost story" back in the day. Never read any Peter Straub, always looking to discover different authors to read. Maybe the book would be worth checking out, love his collabarations with King.

I caught this on Either HBO or Sexamax when I was young and it scared me so effing bad I have never watched it since >_<. Yep, Im a giant Mangina when it comes to this movie.....yay childhood scarring!

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Unfortunately, given the enormous page-length of the book, very little of the novel made it to the screen, just the core story with heavy alterations. However, if Smith's rejected makeup design pissed you off for missed potential, go back and read the book. It makes the adaptation of "It"" for ABC look too faithful to the source material by comparison. And the method of appearing as a corpse to scare and kill off the old dudes was completely fabricated for the movie. Go back and read the book. You're gonna be amazed.

Wow, that movie scared me to death as a (little) kid... I remember feeling really bad for Ronald. I've been looking for it for years but somehow had the name "Richard" in my memory all this time. Looking forward to THAT review, greatly!

... but the movie is especially bad when seen as a book adaptation. The book scared the living piss out of me, and far from having pacing issues, it's masterfully constructed. I mostly remember the movie for young Alice Krige's nude scenes (I think I was still in single digits in the R rating department at the time... and home rentals were still a new luxury... had to go over to a friend's house with permissive parents)

READ THE BOOK. It might have been brilliant in an unfilmable way, but I still think it could have been filmed better. The casting on this movie was fairly good, but the script needed to be worthy of this. ("I won't tell you the worst thing I've ever done, but let me tell you the worst thing I've ever heard . . . "

I read it when I was around 14, and thought I had passed the age when books could legitimately frighten me. But this book scared the beejesus out of me. It wasn't the Grand Guignol type writing that Stephen King indulged in, but more reliant on atmosphere, suspense, and eroticism. The structure was also incredibly elaborate for a horror novel. It was closer to Henry James than King. The movie oversimplified everything, pretty much boiled things down to their essence and lost all the subtext. I still find the movie kinda entertaining as a time killer, but the source material really could make for a masterful film in the right hands.

After I read GS, I started to dig around for his other books. None of the ones I read approached GS in execution, though they dealt closely in themes and styles, especially the use of literary iconography and surreal visions to reveal layers of character. SHADOWLANDS was good, and would make an exceptional movie, but things started getting too dense around FLOATING DRAGON, and by the time he started doing suspense novels with the same recurring character Tim Underhill in KOKO, he'd completely lost me. I hear he's returned to supernatural recently, with middling results, but I haven't checked it out. GS remains pretty much his MOBY DICK.

The book is HUGE, it was a lot like Salems Lot, dozens of characters to follow, a town being consumed by evil. It was a much more ambitious thing. I dig the movie though. It's just a little too old fashioned for its own good.

The book is HUGE, it was a lot like Salems Lot, dozens of characters to follow, a town being consumed by evil. It was a much more ambitious thing. I dig the movie though. It's just a little too old fashioned for its own good.

Try THE THROAT. And I agree with many of the sentiments expressed here when it comes to comparing the film version to the novel. The movie doesn't work, it tries too hard to condense so much of the novel that the result is a fairly banal piece of work. Krige is impressive and the atmosphere is quite well developed...but the film goes nowhere with it.
I hear they're gearing up to adapt Straub's Shadowland, one of my favourite books; I'll lay money they'll screw that one up. Unless the movie's four hours long they'll destroy this. Hmm

Like a few have said, Straub's book is epic in scope, far more layered and complex than the movie. (Probably one of the most shameful adaptaitons of great source material ever.) The plot of the movie is a dumbed-down eviscerated version of only one thread fom the book storyline. Straub writing solo is grossly undervalued - a true talent.

Astaire brings a certain class to his later serious acting roles that you dont really see anymore .He's understated and effective in on the beach too.
All these posters are pretty much dead on with the 'books better than the movie' comments - but I'm just commenting on the movie . Which was enjoyable and scary. Remake? why not ? Casting ideas? Crusty but distinguished old actor time.....!

was designed for use in the scene where kridge is in the bath.It was more of a shock cut idea .The mask /puppet head finally appeared on film in the House on Haunted hill remake , during the scene where geoffrey Rush , is tripping out underwater.I met Alice Kridge at a signing and she is Tiny!! Petite doesn't describe her.I imagined from watching Ghost story that she was kinda sturdy

Nothing great or even a step above just "good" The cop with the cat was cool though.
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And like someone else(and I)said, read The Throat. Read it four times and I can't get it out of my head. So dense and packed with character and backstory.
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And, Floating Dragon, best horror novel ever written.

happen to have penises. Young,naked and female is usually ok in any movie. I find young naked females to be a delightful accent to any situation frankly. No question this movie would have been better with smith's design jumping out. Would have been pretty nightmare inducing for kids. I can see an alternate universe where Scott directed this and they used this design and the movie was classic

Floating Dragon...who can forget the Leakers from that book? That was some seriously squeamish stuff. The problem with trying to fashion a decent movie out of Straub's stuff is that they are so multi-faceted in terms of character development and the plots themselves are devoid of a generic approach and execution. This guy is genius; it's through his recommendation that I checked out a whole bunch of Jonathan Carroll's stuff, and that guy is a seriously entertaining wordsmith...

That was Straub's return to the supernatural after the Blue Rose books, and it got rave reviews, and I've been meaning to check it out. i was so disappointed by KOKO, that I didn't bother with the other books, though I may check out "The Throat" now since it seems to be a fave of everyone's. BTW, if anyone's interested, Google "Peter Straub"'s picture. He's a dead ringer for Dr.Phil.

I'll bite. "Lost Boy, Lost Girl" is good. It was nice to see Underhill again.
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I like Koko and Mystery(though neither compare to The Throat) and though they form a loose trilogy you don't have to read either to understand The Throat. I'd definitely check out The Throat.
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And yes scrote, Straub's work borders on literature. The man knows how to use words and elevates his novels beyond "horror" fiction.

If I remember correctly, hundreds of pages of a well paced spooky narrative ended terribly. Didn't Straub write The Keep? That was a very good book, but a terrible movie. The book was somewhat ripped off for the Highlander movie franchise.

No, I haven't but I've got a PDF version on my HD. I'll check it out seeing as Sailor's given it the thumbs up. Thanks.
Ingeld: that was F.Paul Wilson. I actually kinda liked some of the stuff in The Keep; flawed early Michael Mann. That Molasar...whut a guy, eh?

Someone mentioned The Changeling (George C. Scott, not Jolie) up above and they are very different movies. Namely, The Changeling is much scarier. I love the hell out of that movie. They tried to remake it a few years ago but it thankfully stalled out in the scripting process.
I really like Ghost Story, though. It is fun to see thoae actors but I admit the execution falls a bit flat. I liked the idea of Eva as both the fiance and a ghost and thought it was effective the way she seemed to flip back and forth. You are never completely sure what she is going to do and the end is actually really sad when the her fiance learns the truth about her.
I've never read the book, I need to. I think I have it rambling around in the garage. I loved The Talisman and Floating Dragon. I tried Shadowland but couldn't get into it. Maybe I'll read Ghost Story for an October book this year.

The second one is very unsettling, but it's not convincing as a ghost. Why would it look like that? I had that problem with Ghost Busters -- why are some ghosts humanoid while others are green blobs or cthonic winged things?

The designs were great, best scares in years, great actors, great story, great atmosphere. This is one of the scariest ghost movies hands down. Do NOT believe the negative BS-this is one to watch. GReat Flick all arounds.

I hope I'm not giving anything away -- after all these years it's been in print -- but the huge mistake all these characters made was in thinking that "A.M." was a ghost. A tragic mistake (for them,) because they dealt with her, or, more precisely, "it," in precisely the wrong way.
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Somebody above mentioned THE KEEP, F. Paul Wilson's novel where the characters mistakenly believe they're dealing with a vampire. We learn that such "Molasar" is only pretending to be a vampire, and is in fact an evil entity of Lovecraftian antiquity and malevolence. Likewise Peter Straub's GHOST STORY -- the title is a grim joke -- deals with an ancient nemesis, one that's similarly mistaken for a milder form of villainy, in keeping with its victims' own worldview. Straub's "Chowder Society" of old codgers can't see beyond their own fondness for the traditional Ghost Story, even to the point of being relatively comfortable with the notion of a vengeful ghost. Unfortunately, what they're dealing with is much much much worse than a ghost...
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John Irvin's doesn't get that. Whether deliberately dumbed-down for the movie or just plain old misinterpreted, Peter Straub's titular joke is on him and screenwriter Lawrence Cohen. Just like the characters in the book, they thought they were dealing with a "ghost story."
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Having said all that, I still kind of like the movie. It's atmospheric as hell, and it is terrific to see all those Hollywood legends working together. And Alice Krieg naked is worth the price of admission in and of itself!

Alice Krige is a fetching and randy succubus (nude scenes all over the place). Dick Smith's original makeup was published way back in '80 ("Cinefantastique" magazine); his rejected concepts are missed opportunities. You want a scary ghost story? Sample "The Hungry Glass" episode of BORIS KARLOFF'S THRILLER (w/ Russell Johnson and Wm Shatner, written by Robert "Psycho" Bloch). http://video.tvguide.com/Thriller/The+Hungry+Glass/6320061?autoplay=true